To think that wedding s never used to be such a ‘thing’?

[Serendipity12]

So I got married in the early 90s. We were basically students and had help from parents to afford the wedding, for which we were really grateful. At the time the wedding seemed fine, but looking back - and compared to how weddings are approached now - I’m amazed at how things seem to have changed - or were my standards just really low?!?! For instance, I had one of the first dresses I tried on and only had one fitting session and on the day realised it came with a hoop for under the skirt so I ended up looking like a meringue! In a baggy dress. The organist played the wrong piece of music going up the aisle (I didn’t want to say anything) and food was average, but everyone still had a good time. Looking back I do sort of feel regret but am I Aibu to think that at present the cost and effort and whole bridezilla destination wedding thing is just taking the pursuit of perfection a bit too far and that maybe comparison is just making me feel more regret than I need to?
YABU - your standards should have been higher for your own wedding
YANBU - weddings have become too much of a showcased thing in ore recent years
tempted to add a pic of the meringue but would be outing!!!

100% mortgages were fairly uncommon even in the 1980s, although they definitely were available. And most boomers are too old to have benefited from 100% mortgages on their first properties.

I married for the second time in 2007, it was a very small and cheap affair but suited us and was exactly what we wanted, no fuss.

I think a lot of these huge expensive show weddings have come about due to the pressures of social media and the Americanisation of our culture - so many young people wanting the 'big day' and getting into debt for it. I find it incomprehensible that someone would spend the same on a single day as they would for a car or a deposit on a home, it's just not worth it in my eyes.

Same for baby showers, baby gender reveals, baby/wedding showers etc. etc. I mean I'm all for celebrations and family get togethers and parties but all these themed celebrations seem to come come with gift lists, expectations of money and generally hosted by people with main character syndrome..

YANBU weddings are so ott nowadays. Stag and hen party's that are more like a holiday than a night out. 5 bridesmaids/bestmen. Everything seems to be unnecessarily elaborate and showy. Honestly I don't think people enjoy it anymore than a simple wedding and I certainly don't think it makes for a better marriage

I got married last year and we done register office with a meal at our local pub after with family then friends joined afterwards for drinks :) the pub decorated the back room beautiful & we had a cake from M&S. decor was from Shein/amazon. My dress was the most expensive thing at 1k for all but my sister kindly paid for this. (We were on a budget)!! We had an amazing day and I was worried I'd regret not putting a huge wedding on our credit card but looking back I am so so glad we didn't as we and all our guests had an amazing day and is cost us less than 1k (not including my dress!)

Although I see big weddings from friends and families of mine and I do think they are equally beautiful

Your wedding sounds just like mine, OP. I got married in 1988 and wasn't particularly interested in the planning or the day. We were getting married because we wanted to settle down and start a family fairly soon. It wasn't about the wedding day.

I had a dreadful over the top Victorian high necked dress with shit loads of ruffles and frills and pearl buttons and huge puff sleeves with handkerchief hems. I had a hoop as well. I think it was the first one I tried on, but I don't think there was lot of choice in the local bride shop. We had prawn cocktail starters, some sort of chicken, I think, and pavlova for pudding.

I looked like a bargain basement Princess Di.

Also the guest list was almost entirely relatives. One of the ways wider families kept together was attending each others weddings (The other was funerals).

Less incentive for an evening party do if the fellow guests are your aunts and great aunts

Big part of the wedding was the "going away" - everyone gathering while the bride, in her "going away outfit" and groom settled into the car and were seen off on their honeymoon,

They were the norm. And we are talking about the 90s.

Easter Egg Hunts -yes
Baby Showers -no
Christmas Eve boxes - no
Elf on the Shelf - no
School Leavers Proms -me , six form party , dc. - prom (sixth form )
Gender reveals - no (weren’t told the sec in the hospital I went to either)

Out of the list, I had Easter egg hunts on the garden. Did the same for my dc (now in twenties).

Prom - we had six form party. Just wore normal party gear, nothing extra special. No limousines etc. Dc both had proms.

None of the other stuff was ‘a thing’ in late nineties.

At The start of the 1990s, the average house price was roughly six times the average wage.

I don’t think I’ve seen a bride and groom go off like that ever well apart the my one old money family friend.

Today everyone stays till the bar closes in the hotel and the couple jet off a few days or weeks later. No consummation by the beach the night of 😅

Of The weddings I went to in the 90s most were like the OPs, fairly straightforward food, no free bar, not particularly fancy venue (Village Hall or pub) - dress was sometimes the trad white dress, other times not.
I went to a couple of posh ones, but that was it.

I do think ppl are upping the stakes now. Heard of one couple getting married in a castle- the parents (who aren't hugely well off) bankrolling it.
Bonkers.

Same with the OTT hen dos and the baby showers. Why?

I can't really vote either way. I don't think it's a good idea for people to spend more than they can afford or to show guests such a lack of consideration as you sometimes see reported on these boards.

We went to a lot of weddings in the 00s and 2010s,and one recently and I've never been to a bad one. Mostly in the 00s they were quite traditional like ours, church wedding, we had drinks and canapés after while photos were being taken and an evening reception locally, John Lewis gift list. IIRC the licence system had only just been opened up from the usual church or registry office choice. Ours cost about £9k including the honeymoon and we had120 guests. We were both in professional jobs though in our twenties and could have afforded all of it but our parents did pay for some which was really kind.

I had a Monsoon dress in the sale which was also the first one I tried on - bought as a "just in case" but didn't find anything nicer and got a dressmaker to fit it like a made to measure dress. Got veil, tiara and shoes off eBay so they were not expensive. I actually spent more on my bridesmaids in Coast! MIL made the cake and thousands of canapés which was so kind. We spent hundreds on flowers and cars- had a 1925 Rolls Royce. Bouquet was black baccara roses with massive pink peonies and purple lisianthus. Had my make-up and hair done professionally.

Really appreciated all the homeware gifts as although we had already bought a house together and lived together we still had lots of cheap stuff from student years* and it was nice to get proper grown up things like matching plates!

*In fact I still have some items from a kitchen utensil set from Woolworths in the 1990s. And my mum's rotary hand whisk which is about 60 years old (and very useful).

We did leave the reception about 11pm to go to the hotel. Didn't want us to be too knackered or drunk 😉

And on the back of 100% mortgages came negative equity.

I hear about weddings from people at work - one had hundreds of people to a chateau in France for several days, another went to Italy for a 10 day wedding event, it's all totally mad! It must cost a fortune to host, it definitely costs a lot to attend and it's completely over the top IMO.

When I got married it was in the country I live in, people were invited for the service and an evening do and we paid for all of it. People could stay and pay for themselves or go home, either were fine.

OP, your wedding sounds lovely, don't compare it to the madness of todays Bridezilla. They're mostly insane and probably making up for something lacking elsewhere in their lives. Nobody needs a 10 day foreign extravaganza to plight their bloody troth FGS.

I spoke to a chap recently who had remortgaged his house to help give his second daughter "the wedding of her dreams". He'd contributed towards the first daughter's wedding but she had wealthy in-laws-to-be who ponied up most of the cash so he 'only' had to pay 10k towards the £40k budget.

Daughter number 2 didn't have the wealthy in laws so he was told he had to match the budget for her sister's wedding to make it fair. He had to stump up £35k hence remortgaging.

Now that is bonkers.

@TulsaGirl 100% mortgages were most definitely NOT the norm in the 1970s and 1980s. I don't know about the 1990s, but maybe that's why so many people ended up in negative equity and had to sell their houses at a significant loss and rent instead. We got a 100% mortgage on our first flat in the late 1970s and we were the only people I knew who had been able to get one - all of our friends had to put down at least 10% deposit. We got our mortgage through the Greater London Council and I'm not aware of many institutions, other than some local authorities, who were prepared to loan that much.

I think people are waiting longer and paying for things themselves now, so why shouldn't they spend it how they want? People spend a decade or longer saving buy a house, get married and have a baby - it's hardly surprising they want a bigger do than a 21yo with mum and dad paying.

I think a lot of people who got married 30+ years ago are quite jealous of the weddings people have now and wish they could have had the options we have now.

We had a destination wedding because we didn't want a big fuss, I wore a £30 summer dress. This was nearly 20 years ago, my friends were having nice church and/or hotel weddings around this time, not over the top lavish but lovely with all the trimmings. It was purely choice for us, we wanted a beautiful location and very low key wedding. An expensive floofy dress worn for half a day would have upset me.

I think big fancy weddings are a thing and they have been for a very long time. Particularly when Father of the Bride wants to give his Darling Daughter the princess day of her dreams.

More fool him

I had a school leavers prom (definitely called a prom) in 1992 and a post A-Levels ball in 1994. Both were in formal dress but there were no limos and all that jazz. Or prom queens and stuff like that.

Weddings have ALWAYS been a massive things, at least in some circles. To push it to the extreme, a royal wedding has always been an insane event, but a whole village celebrating wasn't a small thing either. It was easier to feel special in a church. Lovely building, bells ringing beforehand letting the whole world know you were getting married, photographs outside the church, with everyone coming to catch a glimpse of the bride.

I really regret not having bells at my wedding

My FIL is a bell ringer so we had to have bells!

Why?! 😂

Really?